Robots learn how to pick up and pack T-shirts just as well as human workers – paving the way for warehouses manned entirely by machines
- Uniqlo partnered robot statup to kit out factories with textile-packing machines
- Video shows robot arm using suction to cling to items and neatly pack them
- Uniqlo aims to achieve full automation in its factories and warehouses
- The clothing brand produces 1.3 billion items a year and says customer demand is outpacing human demand for jobs
Fashion brand Uniqlo has come closer to full automation in its factories with the introduction of robots that can pick up t-shirts.
Fast Retailing, the owner of the massive Uniqlo brand, is kitting out its warehouses with the textile-packing machines, developed with Japanese startup Mujin.
While the industrial power and rigid frames of many logistics robots are suited to heavy loads, textiles are lighter and require a slightly softer touch to prevent damage.
But footage shows the Intelligent Piece Packing Robot’s curved arm using suction to cling to plastic-packaged t-shirts and place them neatly in boxes to be shipped to customers.
Fast Retailing replaced 90 per cent of its workers with robots at its main warehouse in Tokyo last year
‘We’ve been putting off working with an apparel company because it’s so difficult,’ said Issei Takino, co-founder and chief executive of Mujin, as quoted by the Financial Times.
‘But Fast Retailing’s strength is its ability to overhaul its entire supply chain to make it fit for automation. If we’re going to take on this challenge, we had to do it with Fast Retailing.’
By October 2018, the company reported it had replaced 90 per cent of its Uniqlo staff with robots at its flagship Tokyo warehouse last year.
The arms use suction to pick up plastic packaging and place the clothing within into a shipping box
The technology can also pick up shipping forms, demonstrating its versatility with a range of more delicate materials
It’s now able to go the extra mile with the Intelligent Piece Picking Robot, which detects items with 3D vision and places items neatly in shipping boxes without damage.
Mujin machines can see and move without having to be repeatedly programmed and can prevents mis-shipping by automatic inspection using 3D cameras to scan and log the contents of each package.
The machine can also pick up paper fulfillment forms and place them in each package, and for multiple items within a single box, can precisely aligned item into its own space separated by gaps.
The robot uses one arm to pick up an item from a box and place it on a platform for the other arm, which carefully places it into the cardboard package to be shipped to the customer
Uniqlo reportedly produces 1.3 billion clothing products a year and sells in 3,500 stores in 26 different countries.
But apparel picking automation is difficult because of the nature and variety of items, and worksites are plagued by difficulties in recruiting people to work in tough logistics environments.
Companies such as Fast Retailing are aiming to offload all manual operations to robots and automate them with software systems to increase manufacturing productivity.
The robot needs further development to be able to handle all the facility’s products – such as belts that come unbundled as they are dropped into boxes.
But what about the staff that the robots are said to replace? According to Takuya Jimbo, a Fast Retailing executive, human demand for work just doesn’t match the rate of output.
It’s becoming extremely difficult to hire workers, and it’s a lot more than people think,’ said Takuya Jimbo, a Fast Retailing executive in charge of changing the supply chain.
‘We have to be the frontrunner and continue trial and error because only the companies that can update their business models can survive.’
‘In the case of warehouses, there are no humans to steal the jobs from because the workers just aren’t there,’ said Mr Takino.